


colour of moonlight

by majesdanes



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, yes this is exactly what it sounds like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:32:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdanes/pseuds/majesdanes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hogwarts AU; Cosima discovers the Room of Requirement</p>
            </blockquote>





	colour of moonlight

At this late hour, practically past midnight, the corridors of Hogwarts lie deserted. The pale fingers of moonlight that sweep along the floors of the castle’s upper levels cannot hope to reach the windowless dungeons below–and the few lamps enchanted to hover overhead cast the antechamber in shades of eerie green. In the silence and the vastness of the place, every footstep seems somehow amplified–and perhaps, had she been listening for the sound of them, Delphine might not have been so caught off guard. But hours of patrol without rest had taken their toll, and the prospect of sleep laps just at the edges of her consciousness, the temptation to succumb growing harder to resist by the second. 

She doesn’t  _quite_  scream when a stranger claps their palms over her eyes, extinguishing all sense of sight in one foul swoop–but it’s a near thing. “Guess who?” comes a voice at her back, rich with laughter. At the sound, Delphine deflates, the tension leaving her in waves. 

“I should have known,” she breathes, more shakily than she would like to admit, “that it would be you.” Even blind, there’s no mistaking the press of Cosima’s grinning mouth against the concave juncture where neck meets shoulder, a greeting that sends a not-unpleasant shiver flooding all throughout her body. “It is past curfew, you know. You should be asleep, in your own dormitory.” It’s true, of course–but she musters the words hollowly, speaks them only because she knows that she should. The sleepiness that had settled like a drug upon her weary mind mere minutes ago seems, now, no more than a distant memory. 

Surely Cosima senses this, in the way that Delphine’s long legs straighten, the way she leans into her touch not with exhaustion but with simple yearning. And yet she shrugs–a fluid, heedless movement–and her hands fall away. “I  _was_ going to show you something,” she says, with transparently false disinterest, “But I guess I could, y’know–go take a catnap instead, or whatever.” With a colorfully painted nail, she flicks the badge pinned to Delphine’s chest, emblazoned with a gleaming, silver ‘P’. 

Delphine’s better judgment tells her not to relent, not to fall for the trap that she knows Cosima is laying even as they speak. The last time, after all, that she had allowed herself to be convinced, the night had begun with a romp along the castle grounds, and ended with an armful of Firewhiskey bottles the origins of which she could not begin to discern–nor had she wanted to. But it’s difficult, in hindsight, to see that night in the light that it, perhaps, deserves to be seen–difficult, when the only memories of it her mind can conjure are those of Cosima’s lips against her own, sticky with alcohol, and the drunken cadence of their giggles as they sat twined together by the lakeside, bare feet dangling in the water. 

Sighing, she runs an absent finger along the length of the wand that rests in her pocket, almost as though to prepare herself for the inevitability of capitulation. “Show me  _what,_  Cosima?” Cosima satisfies her expectations by giving no answer–but it’s all too clear that she had taken the question for agreement, because she bounds forward, clasps Delphine’s hand in hers, and tugs her forward. 

It does not take long for Delphine to lose herself in the massive stone jungle that is the castle. She could walk the labyrinthine dungeons from North wing to South and back again with both eyes shut, but traversing the castle in its entirety (in its  _enormity_ ) still eludes her. Cosima, though, leads for the two of them–Cosima, who sails into class ten, sometimes fifteen minutes late, who flits from lesson to lesson with only the vaguest sense of direction, but could pick out the nearest tunnel into Hogsmeade without batting an eye; she has an almost preternatural talent for navigation but only, Delphine thinks wryly, when it suits her to. 

When Cosima halts at last (indefatigable, even as Delphine nears, breath coming in exasperated puffs, on her heels), Delphine almost thinks that they are lost–or else simply stopping to rest. The hall she finds herself in is a wide one, but wholly empty, save for a single tapestry, so enormous that it obscures most of the stone-hewn wall upon which it hangs. In a fleeting instant, Delphine realizes that she has never seen anything half so ugly in all her years. “This–” she manages, passing a hand along her forehead, “This is what you wished to show me?” 

Cosima smiles, all teeth. “His name’s Barnabas the Barmy. He, um–” She snorts, loudly, into a balled fist. “He kinda tried to train trolls for the ballet.” 

“Yes,” Delphine says, tone dust-dry as she surveys the trolls in question: great, savage, lumbering things, all in embroidered tutus. “Yes, I–can see that." 

The wall opposite the ugly tapestry is vacant, and Cosima wastes no time in taking full advantage of the fact. In seconds, Delphine’s shoulders are flush with rough stone; it rests cool against the skin of her neck when she reaches out a hand, sweeps the sunburst of her curls up over her head, and dips down, the better to meet Cosima’s waiting lips. Cosima responds with enthusiasm bordering on frenzy, leaning up on tiptoe, fingers outstretched and scrabbling for purchase; her hands tangle in the bright nimbus of Delphine’s  hair and clench down, white-knuckled, leaving in their wake an almost-hurt that only acts as further stimulation. 

But it’s frustrating, working like this–spine rigid against the wall at her back, forced to stand even when the pressure of Cosima’s roaming hands between stockinged thighs make her legs threaten to buckle beneath her. They are limited, the two of them, stranded at an impasse between warring houses with no middle ground on which to meet. (Delphine has never loathed the glint of blue on bronze that lines Cosima’s collar more than she does in this instant). It’s magnetic,  _voltaic,_ the progress of Cosima’s mouth along the arch of her neck, the predatory nip that leaves behind a pink, prickling patch. But she can’t help that her hands, as they skitter along the indent of Cosima’s waist, wonder what it might be like to meet with flesh, instead of the wool of her cardigan. She can’t help that she burns to pluck her way, button by solitary button, down Cosima’s chest, to ball that collared shirt in a careless fist and toss it aside.

And maybe it had been fun, at first, the added suspense of evading possible capture. Maybe once, her pulse had beat just  _that_ much quicker at the thought of being found, of being  _seen;_ it had forced them to work swiftly, and feverishly, to shed their inhibitions slick as silk. But the novelty, at some point, had worn thin. And it haunts her, now, so lovely that the force of it seems sometimes crushing, the thought of Cosima–spread eagle beneath her, stripped bare; it makes her breath come quicker, the thought of  _having_ her, not in spurts, not in stolen seconds beneath staircases and behind statues, but  _slowly,_ painstakingly. She knows, of course, the very particular weight of Cosima’s breasts cushioned against cupped palms–but she has only rarely ever had the chance to explore them with her lips, her tongue, her teeth. And she knows, too, that Cosima shudders at the trail of a finger, loose and light, from pelvis to torso to chest–but a finger is child’s play, when there’s time to spare. 

Delphine isn’t thinking when she loops a finger in the knot of Cosima’s tie and twists, so that it comes away loose in her open hand. She thinks, pulse ricocheting in her wrist like an animal caged, that this must be why Cosima is pulling free of her grasp–and then she feels it, a new weight that bites  _hard_ into the curve of an upturned hip. She whirls around. Even with her eyes fixed upon it, she can’t process the sight of the brass knocker that had sprung, fully-formed, seemingly inexplicably, into being. But Cosima is smiling that  _knowing_ smile, and it hits her then–

"–you  _knew,”_ she exhales, but already she’s reaching for the knob to the wall-turned-door. Part of her expects it not to give, but then the door sweeps soundlessly inward. Cosima ducks beneath her arm and inside the room that, Delphine is sure, had not existed mere moments ago. It’s a small place, but cozy, bathed in warm light. There’s a little nook hollowed out in the far wall, with a booth for reading, obscured beneath a mountain of overstuffed pillows–and armchairs, beyond it, grouped around a stone hearth. 

"So,” Cosima teases, indicating the bookshelves that line the adjacent wall with a tip of her head that sets her dreads bouncing, “Wanna read?” But she’s already catching the band of her cardigan between thumb and forefinger, ripping it over her head with hands that shake ever so slightly. Delphine swallows back the lump in her dry, dry throat when Cosima reaches out to take her wrist and tug her closer–to guide her searching fingers, in an open invitation, to the still-buttoned collar of her shirt.  

Skittish and laughing, they fall into bed together, a graceless, half-clothed tangle of limbs. And  _Cosima–_ Cosima waits with bated breath beneath her. She’s beautiful, like this, a sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead, hair all in disarray, skirt pooling at her ankles. Delphine, straddling her, leans down to work her way up ( _slow,_ agonizingly slow) every last, newly discovered inch of her. She’s practically squirming when Delphine falls still and sits up, knees still settled on either side of Cosima’s hips. She quirks a mischievous brow. “Have patience. We have all the time in the world.” 

But Cosima only rolls her eyes, head dropping back against the pillow; the breath leaves her body in a frustrated huff. “Doesn’t mean we have to  _use_  it. Is– _Merlin_ , is this my punishment for–for bringing you here?” She can’t help that the words stutter out of her, because Delphine is easing her panties down over her hips, and the gentle friction of lace against skin is  _maddening._ Delphine makes an “Mmmm,” of assent that thrums low in her throat; she adds, “And your prize,” and drops her lips to that shadowy junction between tensed thighs. 

Cosima scrabbles for her wand, and the door slams shut at a wave from it. She leans back against the headboard and thinks, arms arcing languidly past her head as Delphine’s mouth moves against her, that she can play at patience if this is her reward. 


End file.
